‘Life so expensive we can barely breathe’

The cost of living is ridiculously expensive that people can hardly breathe.

That’s the message from Lilia Fa’asao, 31, of Manono-tai.

“You tell them that the cost of living is expensive in Samoa,” was her message for the government. “Every move we make in life, there’s always a cost. We can barely make it.”

Lilia stays home while her husband works.

And although her husband earns money, they struggle to stretch the little money they get every week.

“To tell you the truth, my husband gets paid on Friday and by Sunday we will already have no money.

“This is because we have stuff to contribute to, we have children to feed and loans to pay.”

She added that her main concern is the fact that a lot of people are talking about the N.P.F giving money to Chinese businessmen while workers like her husband struggle to borrow a hundred tala from the Fund.

“I can’t believe this is happening in Samoa,” she said.

“My husband tries to loan from N.P.F which is his money but he can’t and we don’t understand why.

“This is one thing the government should look at, we own Samoa, we are the people of Samoa, and people have the right to loan money from our money.

“You see, we struggle a lot to try and make do with what we have and these people from overseas get to loan from us? This is crazy.”

Lilia is worried about the future of her children and the future of Samoa.

“If we are struggling now, imagine how life will be for our children? It will be difficult for them too.

“The way I see it, the price of goods keeps going up and the money we get is just not enough.

“Not only that, but the thing is, business people from overseas have no right to just borrow money from us because we sweat a lot to earn that money.”

But for some of us, we’ve been working for so long but we still get the same pay and if the NPF do not allow us to loan from our own money then that’s it.

“Why bother working and cutting taxes while we still can’t loan from our own money. I know this is one thing that is making life hard for a lot of people in our country.

“Because as we all know, in Samoa, we loan when we get to contribute to occasions and special events.

“But the reality of how life is in Samoa nowadays, it is getting more and more expensive and the main challenge we face is money.

“It’s hard to stretch the money from my husband’s pay to provide for everything we need.”